fairydust and snowdrops
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: They barely remember their first meeting...but they're connected nonetheless.
1. first meeting

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, f5 – a drabble collection consisting of drabbles 50-500 words.

* * *

 **fairydust and snowdrops**  
 _I: first meeting_

Their first meeting is odd, accidental and unassuming. And all Saji Crossroad's fault. He's the one who catches his neighbour walking home and drags him to a pity party that consists of only three people and one's the girl who's wailing into her pillows. He's also the one who invites silent Setsuna F. Seiei who he knows pretty much nothing about (aside from the fact that he moved in next door and not too long ago).

It's their first meeting, and for both of them, it's not a very memorable one either. If Louise Halevy looks up at his introduction, her eyes are covered by a thick film of tears and his face is just a blur. And if he takes in anything as he sits stiffly on the Crossroads' couch, it's the family photo almost directly across from him, the photo with two young kids and one of them vaguely resembles Saji who sits beside him.

He thinks of family when he sees that. His family. He was about that age when Ali Al-Sachez came to Krugis. The photos with older Saji have only him and a young woman – the girl in the picture beside him. No adults. Orphans too…but this is Japan, not Krugis, and there's no war nor Ali Al-Sachez to make orphans of their own making…

But that's not true, he muses later, and he's almost entirely forgotten about the girl. There is a war and he fights it: a war to end wars. And Ali Al-Sachez and others like him are out there as well: the targets he'll eradicate to end these wars – and people like that, as long as they exist, will create more suffering and more broken families and empty pictures in photo frames.

It's because of wars and people like that who promote war that Louise Halevy can't guarantee she'll see her mother again – whether that's the reason for her tears or not.


	2. different ties

**fairydust and snowdrops**  
 _II: different ties_

Usually, Setsuna doesn't think of his next-door neighbour. And he certainly doesn't think of the company he keeps.

He doesn't realise there are thin threads of wool knitting all of them together until two years later, when his then-neighbour is sitting in the cockpit of the 00-Raiser with him – and sort of not with him as well.

At that point, Setsuna knows that Saji is fighting his own battle and traversing the battlefield for his own battle too. Just like all of them: all of Celestial Being…and not just Celestial Being but others, everyone who's some way or another been affected by war. Louise Halevy too, so easy and so hard to reconcile with that flimsy, frail girl he'd seen in his neighbour's apartment once so long ago…

He sees the threads of wood that tie them, slowly. It's Saji's fault, really. Saji who stumbles into their path as they save him, leave him behind, snatch him away again because Saji still acts like a child and not a child-soldier like him… But he learns. In the midst of war, one can't do anything _but_ learn and he knows it. He's learnt this way too and more cruelly.

Saji, at least, doesn't hold the trigger that took his family away.

But he's heading there. Says he won't fight Louise but they're at war and will she listen? Across the enemy fire, on the battlefield – will she pause and stopping might mean her own life and the absolution she seeks? Maybe, maybe their live is that strong but the loss of her parents is still a new, raw, wound and it mightn't matter even there…

Lockon manages not to pull the trigger but Lockon's hurt is many years old and dulled with their friendship. It's the other way for Louise and Saji. Together once, now opposing. Betrayal.

All these different ways love shatters…


	3. impressions

**fairydust and snowdrops**  
 _III: impressions_

Louise thinks Saji's gotten himself a strange next door neighbour when she firsts hears of him, and tries to catch a glimpse during one of the many times she's at his apartment. It never works, though. He's never home, or if he is, the blinds are drawn and the place silent and empty as though there might as well be no-one there at all.

Sometimes she teases Saji, says he has a ghost or a vampire living next door but Saji's too sensible to fall for that. She can be flighty – she knows it; people always tell her it – but she's too sensible to spook herself with ghost stories as well.

When True Pillar breaks apart…well, that's a different story. She's scared then. She's terrified. But she and Saji and everyone else make it out of there. But the war's gotten closer, and it's still a shadow over them, even in Japan. And then there was the bombing on the way to the bus station.

Her mother comes from Spain, and she's happy. She can forget about how the world's suddenly more frightening and think of happier things, like tailoring her mother's approval of Saji…and, conversely, Kinue's approval of her (though that hasn't been going very well).

When her mother leaves, she, ironically, sees Saji's next door neighbour for the first time. But it's not a memorable experience for her at all (though maybe he does remember, the girl with the long blonde hair crying into his next door neighbour's couch…)

Then there's the wedding in Spain and everything changes.

When she sees him again two years later, she's surprised to see she remembers him. She's far less surprised to see he remembers her as well.

To learn he's a member of Celestial Being on the other hand… It's not like they know each other terribly well, but Saji knew him well enough to invite him over…

 _Saji…does this mean…you too?_


	4. convictions

**fairydust and snowdrops**  
 _IV: convictions_

She doesn't expect to meet Saji on the battlefield, but she does.

She doesn't expect it to be so easy to fight him either, but it is. Part of it is because she fell apart and was remade. She knows this. But it's a distant thought and now, most of the time, Saji is a distant thought as well.

It's almost a relief to receive some closure as to where he's been, what he's up to – even if, sometimes still, before she chokes down that pill that quietens all the tremulous thoughts, she's screaming for him, and for him to come and embrace her and protect her and humour her again.

But that's a relic of her, a past she lost with her family and her hand and that quaint little life in space she'd envisions that now would never be.

Instead, she was making her new life here on the battlefield and she would make it with this mobile suit. She would use this mobile suit to tear down her enemies, those who disrupted the order of the world – and Celestial Being, first and foremost, for tearing her life away from her.

And if Saji is a part of Celestial Being, is Saji has always been connected to them (and his next door neighbour, the Gundam Meister, comes to mind), she'll tear them down as well.

It's a fearsome machine, the 00-Raiser, but she'll tear it down.


	5. scabbed-over wounds

**fairydust and snowdrops**  
 _V: scabbed-over wounds_

Saji isn't sure if Louise ever discovered the name of the Gundam Meister who massacred her family, and he doesn't bother telling her because, really, what's the point? That part of their life is over and, hopefully, it'll stay over too.

Louise is doing a lot better these days, and they see and hear nothing of Celestial Being. Saji drops by his apartment in Japan to clear it out and finds Setsuna's officially moved out of there as well. Same as him then. Abandoning it for a while, before coming back to just clear it out – except it really has been a home, for him. Not so for Setsuna.

Doesn't really matter now. Setsuna is also a part of the past and while he doesn't terribly mind him now, he's a reminder of far too much. A reminder of their participation in the war: a war they'd almost killed each other in and that's a worse tragedy than the tale of Romeo and Juliet through the ages…but of course no-one speaks of such tragedies, because they're too many and too common. He remembers another tale like that: Allelujah and Marie. Or the tale of it anyway.

Actually, he can't remember which of them – he or Marie – came onto the Celestial Being's mothership first. He supposes that doesn't matter either.

What matters is that they finally have their peaceful life back…aside from the scars. The frequent trips to the hospital. The dead look that still sometimes awakens in Louise's eyes. The dreams of gunfire and Gundams clashing in space. All the blood that was his fault because he'd been so mad at Celestial Being, because he hadn't understood…

They don't talk about it. Not now. The memories are still too painful, but they're healing –

And then those metal things show up out of the blue, and then Setsuna shows up again, and those scabbed-over wounds are bleeding again.


	6. blue gundam

**fairydust and snowdrops**  
 _VI: blue gundam_

Louise never forgets the appearance of the Gundam that destroyed her family and her arm. And she knows the Gundams she runs into more often are different – and they're so different, she can tell them apart from each other soon enough as well.

For some reason, she sees one more than the other. Or maybe she just notices that one more.

It's not the one she's after most of all. It's not blood red in the black space sky, but it's good enough. It's in front of her, and that's good enough. It's not the orange one, either, though. The orange one is the one that defeated Lieutenant Peries and she wants to beat that one too (and especially since she's inherited the Lieutenant's machine) but it's not that one either. It's the blue one.

There has to be something about the blue one to keep on drifting into her path, but it doesn't matter. It's a part of Celestial Being, no matter what else it is.

It takes a long time before she realises the 00-Raiser has Saji in there.

It doesn't take much longer than that realisation to guess who's in the cockpit. _Setsuna F. Seiei._

And then she's fighting in earnest, because her mind is screaming. A memory of a dark-skinned boy in an equally dark blue suit drifts to mind, but it fades soon enough. All it tells her is the connection Saji could already have had to Celestial Being, and that's all that matters from it: more evidence towards Saji's betrayal.

Setsuna F Seiei is just the thread that ties the bits of evidence together.

He's also the one who saves her life when she loses to him.


	7. places in battlefields

**fairydust and snowdrops**  
 _VII: places in battlefields_

Setsuna doesn't need to look for Louise on the battlefield. Saji does that. He's just the horse that makes the rescue of the fair maiden possible.

He remembers how they were, long ago. Him about to unlock his door and Saji just peeking out of his. Saji had good instincts even then, somehow picking the one time he was likely to catch Setsuna at all that day.

And then he invited him into his home with barely any preamble, and Setsuna wound up awkwardly seated on that couch beside him.

Now it was Saji awkwardly sharing the 00-Raiser and his battlefield. But he was sharing too, sharing Saji's desire to find Louise and save her, spare her –

He didn't think he'd try and save someone on the battlefield instead of eliminate them as adjuncts of war, but here he is doing exactly that. Trying to save a girl because the guy in the other cockpit wants to – but it's more than that. He knows it is. It's because the love between them and that pours out of them into revenge is something he's missed out on, is something he shot to death with his own hands… They're like Lockon – Neil and Lyle. Hating war because it stole their family from them, but completely free from the blame.

Not like Setsuna. Setsuna held the trigger himself, no matter how much other forces drove him forward.

But now, all their hands are covered in blood. His, Lockon's, Saji's, Louise's… And the world's exploded into war. It's not about sparing people anymore. It's about trying to save them. And ending this war. And if all Saji feels he can do is save Louise, then Setsuna will help him do it.

And so he does. He finds her on the battlefield and they fight, but it's a careful and carefully calculated fight. He wins but she doesn't die. Instead, he catches her. Catches her, and leaves her in Saji's arms.

And then he plucks them out of the battlefield where they belong, and he returns to where _he_ belongs: in the cockpit of his Gundam.


	8. connections

**fairydust and snowdrops**  
 _VIII: connections_

They are connected through three entirely different people.

The first is how they meet face to face, independent of the war that blossoms all around them…or not so independent. After all, Setsuna needed a permanent address because of his involvement with Celestial Being. He needed a front, and that led him to the empty apartment beside the Crossroads.

And that led him to Saji Crossroad and Louise Halevy. To Saji Crossroad first…when he first moved in, ironically. Then a knock on the door later when he brings a casserole over, playing the friendly neighbour.

Setsuna barely reciprocates, and even manages to avoid seeing him (through no effort of his own) for quite a while. And one-word answers when he does.

And then there's the sudden invitation into the Crossroad's apartment. That's quite a while after the chaos has escalated, and the world's grown even more ugly. But Louise crying on the sofa isn't that ugly. It's simple and childish like fairydust, like things he hasn't believed in for a long time.

The second connection is through Nena Trinity, and it's exactly the sort of tragedy he's been fighting to prevent. His blood boils when he hears of it, but it's too late then. Nothing he can do – except he _can_ do something. Many things, but the path he chooses is the path that keeps him alive and moving forward. He can be the sacrifice for revenge but he chooses to fight to end fighting again. Chooses the path he's always believed he was on, despite all these warmongers pulling the strings for the own amusement instead. Ali al-Sachez, Alejandro Corner, and now Ribbons Almark. But Nena Trinity massacred that wedding for her own reasons. Reasons the original Celestial Being does not agree with.

Not that Saji Crossroad believed that the first few times they told him, and not that Louise Halevy is believing him either.

And then there's the third factor that brings them together, and this is a factor that neither of them considers: Ribbons Almark.

Oh, they both know Riboons Almark, but they know him independent of each other and they don't realise the significance of that connection. But they've both been manipulated to suit his own needs, his own goals. It's the Gundam 0 in the sky that leads Setsuna to become a member of Celestial Being. It's the tablets Ribbons has provided for Louise that's turned her into an Innovate and fed her hatred for Celestial Being.

Puppets manipulated behind the scenes – and yet, the one who brings them together in the end is Saji Crossroad once again: the honest boy who's trying to cheer his girlfriend up and get to know his neighbour a little better.

You don't need a war to connect people after all.


End file.
